Following a mishap that occurred recently in Cuncolim involving a Bal Rath bus, the state government has reportedly fixed a distance within which the Bal Rath buses must ferry school students. For schools and high schools, the Bal Rath buses will now pick up and drop students within a radius of 5 km from the school, while higher secondary school students will be picked up and dropped by the Bal Rath buses from within a radius of 7 km from the institution.
The government has warned that managements of the educational institutions would be responsible for any untoward incidents if the Bal Rath buses pick up and drop students beyond the specified distance. It is learnt that this clause of specific radius has been inserted to avoid and prevent any untoward incident. The earlier scheme did not mention any specific radius. The question that arises is how will the students, who live beyond the specified radius, reach the institution in time in absence of Bal Rath buses? Can accidents not take place within the specified radius?
It is learnt that the government has also made it mandatory for school managements to submit vehicle fitness-certificate annually. Though the government has hiked the grants to the government aided schools to operate the buses. There will obviously be an extra burden on the school management. The school administration is primarily responsible for conducting the school curriculum and to look after the educational aspect of the students. Carrying out maintenance of the school buses could be handled by the technical section of the Kadamba Transport Corporation which carries out repairs of the buses at its depot and workshop. The annual fitness certificate for the Bal Rath could also be obtained from the RTO by them to be submitted to the education department.
